If nothing else, the outcome of last night's New Hampshire primary shows that the God brokers may have an uphill battle making the world safe for Armageddon. But, given that we've seen the stock market crash twice in the past century, will we see the God market crash, too? .

Now that Comeback McCain has emerged as a force to be reckoned with, again, and a "Christian" one at that, will this former prisoner of war ensure that the Eighth Amendment injunction against "cruel and unusual punishment" be observed, and what of his Democratic counterparts? More importantly, will torture, or physical abuse, of those in captivity, whether it be in a secret holding cell in Afghanistan or in state prisons in Georgia, be exposed, prohibited, and legally actionable?

Essentially, the question is, will the presidential candidates, of both parties, be made to account not only for their position on waterboarding, specifically, but on torture, in general, as well as capital punishment, extraordinary rendition, and domestic prisoner abuse?

When, earlier this week, the Supreme Court heard arguments
about whether execution by lethal injection is constitutional, Justice
Antonin Scalia observed that "There is no painless requirement in the
Constitution." Indeed, there is no requirement for execution in the
Constitution at all. The Fifth Amendment refers to a "capital, or
otherwise infamous crime," but not capital punishment.

Importantly, the Supreme Court case has been brought by inmates who
aren't asking to be spared execution, only to be spared pain. Justice
Scalia's chief concern is for a "national cessation of executions that
could last for years." We wouldn't want that to happen, he adds, even
at the risk of acknowledging that there is constitutional acceptance of
pain, and the kind that the framers couldn't imagine in their wildest
dreams: a three drug cocktail that renders the victim unconscious,
paralyzes him, and then kills him. In Kentucky, it is illegal to
euthanize an animal in this manner.

You'll recall that, in 1972,
most death penalty cases were thrown out, only to be restored four
years later. But, the issue of torture, cruel and unusual punishment,
is greater than the death penalty, and includes kill orders given by
military officers in Iraq, and elsewhere, that cross the line from
justifiable wartime self-defense into legally prosecutable homicide.

Witness the case of Marine Staff Sgt, Frank Wuterich who faces
arraignment on charges of voluntary manslaughter for the massacre, two
years ago, of more than 20 innocent Iraqi civilians in Haditha.
Wuterich is charged with taking nine lives "in the heat of sudden
passion." (WaPo) Charges against his Marine subordinates have been
dropped with the exception of two enlisted men, and another Marine
officer.

While it is heartening to see that there is an
attempt at justice, on the part of this administration, in the Haditha
matter, keep in mind that Sgt. Wuterich took orders from someone, too,
,and the person who gave the thumbs-up to fire on two dozen innocent
civilians must be held to account for the Marine staff sergeant's
actions in much the same way that charges are brought to bear on
Wuterich instead of his subordinates.

Consider, too, that the
process of arraignment itself in which a person appears before a court,
is apprised of pending charges, the right to counsel, and the right to
trial by jury, already places the staff sergeant several paces ahead of
any of the folks we currently hold in Guantanamo Bay, and elsewhere.

Not coincidentally, it was then sitting Secretary of Defense, Donald
Rumsfeld, who coined the phrase "unlawful enemy combatant," and who,
arguably, should be facing arraignment on charges of war crimes or, at
the very least, called upon to testify as to who gave the command to
preemptively slaughter dozens of innocent Iraqi civilians. After all,
if the House Intelligence Committee can subpoena the former chief of
the "clandestine service" of the Central Intelligence Agency, Jose
Rodriguez, Jr., to talk about how hours of interrogation videotapes
disappeared, why can't a court in California subpoena another retiree,
Donald Rumsfeld, to testify about who knew about the massacre at
Haditha, and when, as well as who gave the order to try and cover it up?

Of
course, we all know that state-sanctioned killing on the battlefield is
quite different from state-sanctioned killing in an execution chamber,
say, in Texas, the most prolific death penalty state in the nation.
Similarly, we all know that the widely published horrific photos of
humiliation, taunting, physical, and psychological abuse of prisoners
at Abu Ghraib show only how we treat wartime enemies, right? Not so.

On
Tuesday, a class action lawsuit was filed by seven inmates at Valdosta
State Prison, in Georgia, that names more twenty-four prison guards who
allegedly engaged in "routine beatings and torture of restrained
inmates" that resulted in the deaths of two prisoners. (AP) Further,
according to the pending lawsuit, correction officers attempted to
cover up their "cruel and unusual" punishments by beating up those who
filed complaints against them. That a court of law, anywhere in the
United States, should demand an "immediate end" to beatings in a state
prison is an outrage of seismic proportions.

Clearly, the
lines might have been blurred between how we detain as "enemy
combatants," and those we hold in our nation's jails, when Congress
passed the USA Patriot Act, which blurred the lines between law
enforcement and "homeland security."

Given that virtually all of
the presidential candidates profess to be religious to one degree or
another, and conveniently blur the line between church and state for
their own political gain, by doing so, they have also agreed to factor
God into the already overcrowded marketplace, thus they must also
acknowledge having converted the Almighty into a merchant of war, as
well.

In the end, perhaps Justice Scalia is right. Maybe it's
time to write "painless" into the Constitution. Surely, if the Supreme
Court can hear arguments, and consider, about what constitutes "cruel
and inhuman punishment," so can those running for President of the
United States. Indeed, and they may also wish to take up the
increasingly important issue of what constitutes torture. It might even
be time for a constitutional injunction against nflicting pain, whether
physical or psychological, as well as capital punishment.

At the
very least, there needs to be a closer look at amending the
Constitution to reverse the ravages of the Military Commissions Act of
2006, and ensure that no chief executive can ever legally claim
immunity from war crime charges.